Great fun video on the supremely important topics of science education, funding and public awaeness. Superstition and fear cannot provide the solutions to our present energy, environmental, educational and economic crisis. Only science can research, discover and impliment answers to our most pressing problems. Yet the candidates are still trying to avoid dealing with scientific issues. We cannot let them get away with this. Go Darlene.

John Reitter

John Reitter

Great fun video on the supremely important topics of science education, funding and public awaeness. Superstition and fear cannot provide the solutions to our present energy, environmental, educational and economic crisis. Only science can research, discover and impliment answers to our most pressing problems. Yet the candidates are still trying to avoid dealing with scientific issues. We cannot let them get away with this. Go Darlene.

Bart gets a good discussion going on the framing of the 14 questions. Sees a biased slant and isn’t shy about explaining why here http://bartacus.blogspot.com/ Thanks, Bart. And here’s Shawn Otto’s (one of the founders of the Science Debate) response: Good discussion, interesting post.

The questions were reviewed and refined by all the non-partisan groups signing, in multiple phone and email discussions, and then run past all their subgroups, and then after that, run past a major DC 501c3 attorney for impartiality, and then revised per his recommendations, and the the revisions he approved were run back by all the signer organizations. It’s very easy to read an agenda into something when you suspect someone is slanted and then go looking for confirmation. This is in fact applying one’s own agenda.

For example, the climate change wording was initially something like “The National Academies has said that human-caused climate change is…” and we quoted them then posed the question what should be done. But we changed it to the current wording at the insistence of our more conservative signers, so it’s ironic he’s criticizing us for that of all things. The partisan political questions in congress are not over whether it is happening, but whether it is human-caused. We do not take a position on that (or any other issue), only that it is occurring and of the proposed options, we ask what the candidate thinks should be done, or whether something else should be done, which should be instructive. Our agenda is to promote the discussion, not to push particular solutions.

Bart gets a good discussion going on the framing of the 14 questions. Sees a biased slant and isn’t shy about explaining why here http://bartacus.blogspot.com/ Thanks, Bart. And here’s Shawn Otto’s (one of the founders of the Science Debate) response: Good discussion, interesting post.

The questions were reviewed and refined by all the non-partisan groups signing, in multiple phone and email discussions, and then run past all their subgroups, and then after that, run past a major DC 501c3 attorney for impartiality, and then revised per his recommendations, and the the revisions he approved were run back by all the signer organizations. It’s very easy to read an agenda into something when you suspect someone is slanted and then go looking for confirmation. This is in fact applying one’s own agenda.

For example, the climate change wording was initially something like “The National Academies has said that human-caused climate change is…” and we quoted them then posed the question what should be done. But we changed it to the current wording at the insistence of our more conservative signers, so it’s ironic he’s criticizing us for that of all things. The partisan political questions in congress are not over whether it is happening, but whether it is human-caused. We do not take a position on that (or any other issue), only that it is occurring and of the proposed options, we ask what the candidate thinks should be done, or whether something else should be done, which should be instructive. Our agenda is to promote the discussion, not to push particular solutions.